October 25, 2015

Hello everyone!! Great news!!! I am lucky enough to be a part of Princess Netherly's one year celebration!!! Congrats to such an awesome TPT author for the amazing accomplishment! To celebrate all of her successes, we are hosting a giveaway!! In this giveaway you will find your choice of many TPT author items and gift cards! Fill out the Rafflecopter below! Best of luck!!!

October 22, 2015

My school in Pittsburgh, PA has teachers work one after-school program per week (more if you chose to do so). So, of course, I chose to create a reading program for Kindergarten students. Teaching reading is one of my favorite things to teach. During this program, we read a story that aligns with seasons/holidays/etc., work on some comprehension skills and usually do some type of craftivity to make it really fun for the kiddos. This week we read Where's My Mummy? by Carolyn Crimi. This is the perfect book for Halloween next week! The kids loved it!!!

October 20, 2015

Hello!! I apologize that my Markdown Monday post is on a Tuesday! I joined this linky party too late last night to accomplish writing a post before bed. I struggle staying awake as soon as my body hits the couch! Ha! Thanks to Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations for the Linky Party!!! Click the link to see all the amazing products on sale for the week!

I chose to mark down my Fry's Sight Word and Intervention Pack for this Markdown Monday! I love this intervention pack and I use in constantly during Guided Reading centers in my classroom. I have two students that leave my classroom during Guided Reading to receive Title Support. However, I have two students that are still in the Tier 2 part of RTII that I meet with every day. I use this sight word pack as an intervention strategy to reinforce learned sight word with those students. I'll tell you this.... I believe that it's working! Slowly but surely my two girls in this group are remembering sight words more frequently. There are two different pages for every word through the document.

Page One Looks Like This:

We work through this small group following this routine:

We figure out the sight word together. They use different strategies to help them figure out the word. Sometimes we use the Kid Crown helper if the sight word has it (Kidwriting by Eileen Fledgus), sometimes we use the sounds to read the sight word and sometimes, honestly, I just need to tell them.

We count how many letters are in the word.

They trace and write the word on their own.

We then follow along the sentences using our finger to practice concepts of print. Together we find sight words that we know. Again, we use the same strategies to figure out unknown words (Kid Crown helpers, letter sounds and potentially teacher help). We then circle all of the words from that paper in the sentences. In this case we circle every word "in" that we find. The group also practices fluency by reading the sight words together after the ones we know are highlighted.

We then spell the word while underlining the letters.

We find either the picture that rhymes with the given word or write the sight word in an pattern as directed on that page.

Finally, they rainbow write and silly write the sight word.

Page Number Two:

This can be a fun way for practicing sight words for those targeted students.

Here is a photo the completed pages during guided reading time. I'm so proud of how well they are doing!

October 11, 2015

This year I have tried something new with my Kindergarten class that my students and I absolutely love! During one writing block each week, we complete a classroom book (yes, a classroom book a week!!). It may seem excessive, but you'd be surprised how much the students find it fun, while still working on becoming great writers! As soon as I'm finished conferencing with each student, I quickly put it together and we read it right away. They clap through every single page as they compliment their friends on how well they did! Here's a peak at October's themed books.

Each book has a writing page with a sentence starter that correlates with the book's theme. You can find October's themed books here. My store has books for every month and a full year bundled pack at a discounted price! The writing pages become more challenging as the year progresses and I will expect my students to write more each time.

Parent-teacher conferences are tomorrow at my school and I am so excited to put these books out for parents to read! I plan on putting them in the hallway for parents to look at while they are waiting outside the classroom. Hope you enjoy!!!

October 9, 2015

My blog is finally b-e-a-utiful thanks to Blogs Fit For a Queen!! (find them here.) It was affordable and quick for the amount of blogs they work on at once! I find it amazing that people know how to design these blogs, because when I tried to teach myself through tutorials and YouTube the past few months it was an epic fail. HUGE Thank you to those girls!

I wanted to start my blog by sharing something that I created this summer and is now newly implemented in my classroom and the kids LOVE it! My Superhero Writing Kit motivates students about the different parts of writing for young writers. Each component has it's own superhero. Students can earn the Superhero's super power they prove to the teacher they can use it in writing independently. (What kid doesn't want to earn a super power?!)

Queen Capitol

Susie Spacing

Punctuation Pete

Sight Word Vision Girl

Super Stretch Man

Vibrant Voice Vince

Each kid has a Superhero writing hat. Here is my class below on the day Superhero Writing was introduced. They absolutely love their hats, and we wear them every time we write (after discussing rules of the hats of course).

An individualized Superhero Card for students to recognize which Superhero they still need to earn. This also includes examples of how each one would be used correctly.

A progress monitoring sheet for teachers to track if they use each skill within their writing.

A brainstorming "What Do I Write About?" sheet

Journal cover and journal pages.

It's amazing to see how many kiddos are already so much more intrigued about writing, even spacing, than the last two years I taught Kindergarten. I hope that by the end of the year, each Superhero writing hat looks like the one below!! Every Writing Superhero MASTERED! Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!!!